Sandra Faber, astronomy professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, was announced on Wednesday as the winner of the 2009 Bower Award and Prize for Achievements in Science. The prize is presented to her by the Franklin Institute, whose awards programme is one of the oldest and richest in the US. The science prize itself dates back to 1990, and after Sir Martin Rees Sandy Faber is the second astronomer to win the prize.
In the 1980s Faber formed part of a highly influential group of astronomers called the Seven Samurai, who made great contributions to our understanding of galaxy evolution. She lends her name to an important power-law relation between the luminosity and central stellar velocity dispersion in elliptical galaxies, the Faber-Jackson relation.
Congrats!
Read the official press release here. The Franklin Instute have a nice video profile, watch it here.
wow – thats fantastic! what a prize, and she deserves it! thanks for reporting